


gang activity

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Ben Tries His Best (Disney: Descendants), Kissing, Multi, Polyamorous Mal (Disney), Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Descendants 2, Quote: We don't really have dating on the island. It's more like gang activity. (Disney), Sexuality Realisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:07:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27162244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: When they got to Auradon, it was... a culture shock, to say the least. People were in neat family units: a mother, a father, a picket fence (or a castle) and children who were all in neat little monogamous relationships of their own. Mal didn’t see anything that looked like what people had on the Isle; whatshehad on the Isle, her and Jay and Carlos and Evie.
Relationships: Ben/Jay/Mal (Disney: Descendants), Ben/Mal (Disney: Descendants), Evie/Jay/Mal/Carlos de Vil
Comments: 4
Kudos: 106





	gang activity

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i'm back after months of nothing with [checks notes] fic for a set of disney channel original movies i watched while very depressed?? the muse wants what the muse wants, i guess, and the muse said 'all of them must kiss'. thanks to afterandalasia and Izilen for beta/cheerleading!!! This would not exist without you <3

Dating wasn't really a thing that happened on the Isle. It wasn't like anyone made anything _good_ there — what role models did they have for what functional relationships looked like? Everyone was going to betray you eventually, so the best way to avoid that was not to give them the opportunity. No promises, no expectations; just whatever was happening here and now.

So sure, Mal had found an escape, at some point or another, with all of them — a fumble with Jay, a kiss in an alleyway with Carlos, a night of forgetting what was waiting for them at home with Evie. And perhaps she kept coming back to them, not out of some sense of loyalty or affection but because they were something familiar; they knew what made her feel good, and she knew her way around them, too. It was just easier for all parties, really. Sometimes it was three of them or all four — not often, because logistically it was trickier, but it didn't seem all that different from everything else. It was a natural progression.

When they got to Auradon, it was... a culture shock, to say the least. People were in neat family units: a mother, a father, a picket fence (or a castle) and children who were all in neat little monogamous relationships of their own. Mal didn’t see anything that looked like what people had on the Isle; what _she_ had on the Isle, her and Jay and Carlos and Evie. 

And then there was Ben, and the love potion, and — it began to feel like she was doing something wrong. It wasn’t that what she had with Ben felt particularly different, except for the bit where she was terrified it would all fall apart when the love potion wore off; it was more that she had the feeling that Ben would be hurt (betrayed?) if he saw her kissing Evie in their room, or Jay with his hand up her skirt. 

The voice in her head that sounded like her mother said that that would be a perfect way to betray him — it was the devil in the details, like rubbing a lollipop in your armpit before you gave it back to a baby. First, though, she had to get the lollipop — which in this case was the wand, so she could free her mother and everyone else on the Isle. No point in jeopardising that too early with some foolish desire to get her rocks off (or to feel something familiar, something like home, in this strange new land—).

And then — and then came the coronation, and Mal chose good, chose Ben and chose Auradon. It was the right choice. It was the choice she wanted to make, instead of the choice her mother wanted. That was what she kept repeating to herself in the days that followed, trying to ignore how much she wanted to curl up to Evie in bed and forget, just for a moment, that she was Mal, Girlfriend of the King of Auradon, Good and Redeemed and Perfect. How uncomplicated it would be to follow Jay to some secluded corner and have the satisfaction of doing exactly what he wanted her to do, of succeeding in a concrete task she knew how to complete.

When she had started dating Ben she’d made it clear to the others that she wouldn’t be available for that kind of thing, pointing out that that would scupper their chances of getting close enough to steal the wand, and everyone had taken that in stride. When she walked in on something she quickly left the room instead of joining in. She knew the others missed her — Evie said so, once, after they’d turned the lights off to go to sleep, and she’d caught Carlos and Jay looking sometimes. 

But that was the price she had to pay for this new, perfect life with ice cream and strawberries and beautiful dresses. Nothing was free. It was just one of the things that strangled her until she couldn’t take it anymore — how could she be what Ben deserved, if she still wanted the others, too? 

She ran, and she ended up back on the Isle of the Lost but not with the people she wanted. She was free, but she didn’t want to take advantage of the boys who leered at her in the market or the girls who ran their hands down her arm in a silent question. She wanted — she wanted something too complicated for her to have. 

It was only after the Cotillion, as she looked at the stained glass window depicting her purple hair and her glowing green eyes, that she dared to hope — perhaps. Ben was more understanding of the cultural differences between them, now, and he trusted her. She wanted to be worthy of that trust.

In the end, it was taken out of her hands completely — Ben came to where she was in the library working on a Magical History assignment. He looked grim and suggested they go for a walk, shaking his head when she asked why. Mal concentrated on not throwing up as they wound their way along a picturesque wooded path until they reached a clearing with a log at the perfect height to sit on. They weren’t far from the school — she could see through the trees — and she trusted Ben wasn’t going to do anything nefarious, but… old habits were hard to break, and she worked out the best escape route anyway. She wasn’t raised to run away from a fight, but fighting with the king was probably frowned upon.

“I went to your room to see if you were there,” Ben began, looking at his hands instead of her. Mal couldn’t think of anything in her room that would make Ben look like this — she was done keeping secrets, her spellbook safe in the library. “And I saw — I saw Evie kissing Carlos.”

He paused and looked up at her, clearly waiting for some kind of reaction. She wasn’t sure what he wanted from her. 

“I just don’t understand why Carlos would do this. Did he break up with Jay? I didn’t hear anything. How are we going to break the news?” he continued, looking anguished.

“Oh,” Mal said, but she had no idea what to say next. “I didn’t know they were dating?” she said, her tone rising at the end. “Jay and Carlos, I mean.”

Ben looked lost. “But — I saw them kissing after Cotillion, and… Jay gave him those chocolates on Monday, so I assumed…”

“We didn’t really do dating on the Isle,” Mal said, thinking back to when she had first said this, at the enchanted lake. “It was — you did things, but there was no expectation that you wouldn’t do it with anyone else. Nobody owned you, you were free to do what you liked.”

“Is… is that how you think of us, that I _own_ you?” Ben sounded horrified, and Mal immediately regretted her choice of words.

“No,” she said, because it was true — she missed the others, but she didn’t feel like he was controlling her. He just had expectations she couldn’t fulfill. “It’s just — it wasn’t a thing back home. We didn’t think of it like that. Different people offered different things, you know? It doesn’t make sense to restrict yourself to one person — didn’t, I mean. I haven’t — I know it’s different here.” This sure would be going better if she could manage a single coherent sentence. She didn’t dare look at Ben.

“So you… on the Isle of the Lost, you — was it with Jay and Carlos? You don’t have to answer that, it’s none of my business,” Ben said hurriedly.

“And with Evie,” Mal said. “When I started dating you I made it clear that I couldn’t do that anymore, though.”

“You couldn’t or you didn’t want to?”

She had absolutely no idea what Ben was feeling from his tone, and she dared a quick glance at his face to see that he mostly looked confused. It was better than angry, so she’d take it.

“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

There was a beat of silence, and then he said, “Is there something I can do to… be better? I know that I didn’t see how much you were struggling, before, but if there was something that they provided that I don’t, I can change or — or learn.”

When Mal looked up again he was blushing furiously but he looked sincere. 

“It’s not — you’re not falling short, it’s… it’s not a matter of replacing them?”

“I didn’t mean to imply that—” Ben said, but she cut him off.

“No, I know, but I mean… what I feel for them is separate from what I feel for you. Not different, as such, but they’re not in competition? I know in Auradon there’s some idea that they _should_ be, that it’s cheating, but… I don’t want you less just because I want them, too.”

Ben made a sound of acknowledgement but didn’t say anything else for so long that Mal began to think that he was trying to work out a way to break up with her that they could spin to the press as amicable. He was exactly the sort of lovely that he’d protect her like that. She had definitely never deserved him.

“I don’t… I don’t think I would be comfortable with you doing it in secret,” he said abruptly, and Mal felt like she had somehow missed the first half of his thought. “I wouldn’t want you to feel like it’s something shameful that you have to hide from me.”

“I haven’t been—” she began, but he held up his hand and she bit back what she was going to say.

“I know you haven’t, but you want to in the future, don’t you? There’s got to be a way we can make this work. I want you to be happy, because you make me happy.”

Mal really couldn’t believe that she deserved Ben, but somehow he was choosing her anyway.

* * *

Watching Mal kiss Jay was very confusing.

First of all it felt like he shouldn’t be intruding, that watching felt… wrong, somehow. And secondly — and this was the one that took him by surprise — he kept expecting to feel threatened by the sight of his girlfriend kissing someone else, but he didn’t. Mal giggled breathlessly against Jay’s lips and Ben… he sure felt something, but he had no idea what it was.

He met Jay’s eyes entirely by accident. Well, Jay had to be looking at him in the first place, so he supposed it wasn’t entirely by accident, but it wasn’t intentional on his end. Jay raised his eyebrows a little and Ben was struck, again, by the notion that he had no idea what to do. It wasn’t a terribly familiar feeling — he was good at social interactions when it was with the people of Auradon, but the Villain Kids kept tripping him up, catching him off-guard. 

Jay’s hand slipped under Mal’s shirt and she gasped — were Jay’s hands cold? They were… they were very large, he supposed as he looked at Jay’s other hand that was settled comfortably around Mal’s waist. Larger than Mal’s hands, anyway. He was halfway through wondering what Jay’s hands would look like around his waist when he caught himself, shaking his head as if he could dislodge the thought. That was — he wasn’t supposed to be thinking that. That wasn’t the goal of this, he just wanted to make sure Mal was happy, that he would be alright with knowing and seeing this so she wouldn’t feel like she had to hide it.

He was not supposed to be staring at Jay. Jay, if anything, was the least important factor in this whole thing, since Mal would be doing this with Evie and Carlos, too. And yet — for some reason he couldn’t take his eyes off him. Jay met his gaze again and this time he winked, which… Ben shifted uneasily where he was sitting on Evie’s bed. It was terribly hot in this room. His face felt flushed and as he swallowed he wondered why his throat felt so dry.

He was wondering just how ridiculous he would look if he ducked out for a glass of water when he heard Jay laugh. “Feeling left out, Your Highness? Want a go?” 

Ben’s mouth opened seemingly of its own accord and hung there for a moment as he tried to control whatever else his face was doing. He’d been training to be the king for as long as he could remember — there had been lessons on controlling what his face was doing when people said something rude or unexpected, and yet they had all deserted him now, at the hour of his greatest need. His first impulse should not be to jump at the chance to kiss his girlfriend’s — other kissing partner? He had no idea if they had any particular words for it, and he made a mental note to ask later. 

He had no idea how long he sat there looking ridiculous (three seconds? Three years?) before Mal, bless her, took pity on him and pulled him over to her bed. She took his face in both hands and kissed him, which was familiar, easy. He knew how to do this. Her mouth tasted sweet, like the pineapples Jay took so much delight in even though he inevitably ate so much that his mouth began to hurt. (One day he would learn when to stop. Probably.)

He would have thought that he’d forget about Jay, since his whole brain should have been thinking about Mal, and how perfect she was, and how her fingers were trailing along his ribs under his shirt, but on an impulse he opened his eyes and Jay was looking right at him.

This should, by all rights, have made him at the very least uncomfortable. He’d been no stranger to public displays of affection with Audrey, but this already felt much further that any of those, and no one had ever _watched_ in such a deliberate way. But instead he found himself glad that Jay was watching, hoping he liked what he saw. When he met Jay’s eyes, he flushed and a thrill went through his stomach that had nothing to do with Mal.

“Mal, if I may,” Jay said right next to him, though Ben hadn’t even noticed him crossing the room. Mal turned to face Jay, retrieving her hand from under Ben’s shirt, and she smiled as if she knew something Ben didn’t. She moved to sit next to Ben on the bed instead of straddling him and suddenly Ben was faced with Jay.

“Could I have a go?” Jay said, leaning in slowly, eyes flickering between Ben’s lips and his eyes. Ben shot a look at Mal, who was grinning, and, well, what did he have to lose? He’d never been particularly interested in boys before, but that felt like a problem he could examine later, probably to freak out about in the privacy of his own room. 

So he leant forward to meet Jay’s lips with his, and it’s — well, it’s a kiss. He had expected it to feel radically different, somehow, but the mechanics were still the same, and Jay was very talented. When he pulled back, breathless, he felt like his blood was buzzing underneath his skin, and in response to Jay’s hopeful smile he laughed. He felt almost light-headed with the knowledge of what he’d just done. He had no idea what the consequences would be, if anyone but the Villain Kids got wind of it, but he knew he wanted to do it again — so he did.

He had no idea if this was how it would go with Evie and Carlos, but he was excited to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> and yes, ben definitely kisses carlos and evie as well, but i leave that as an imaginative exercise for the reader.


End file.
